Blu-ray Review – Dead Snow 2: Red VS Dead

I enjoyed the first Dead Snow film well enough, but it seemed like it gathered a ravenous fanbase, which I was not a part of. It was a competently made zombie film, but at the time, I had pretty much had it up to here with the genre. Plus, another couple of nazi “zombie” movies came out around the same time, such as Outpost, and to a lesser extent, Frankenstein’s Army. I had little hope for a sequel to a mostly decent foreign zombie movie. You can imagine my surprise when early word of mouth from the festival circuit was mostly positive. After around 50 emails, I was finally able to find a PR person with an online screener for me to view. The first time I would see Dead Snow 2 would be mostly in its native tongue. I realized that Martin Starr was in the film, however, so I knew it had to be at least partially English. When the Blu-ray was announced by Well Go USA, I was surprised to learn that the movie had been filmed in both languages. I love it when a director does things like that. I love it even more when I compare the two versions of the film, and the experience is virtually seamless. The movie itself is a ton of fun. Quite possibly some of the most fun I had with a movie in 2014. That’s not to say that Dead Snow 2 is the best movie of the year, not by a longshot. But what it does, it does very well.

Synopsis:

Martin (Vegar Hoel) hasn’t had the best vacation. He accidentally killed his girlfriend with an axe. He cut his own arm off with a chainsaw. And his friends STILL got devoured by a battalion of Nazi Zombies. This morning, he woke up in a hospital bed with a new arm – but it’s a super-powered Zombie arm that wants to kill him, and anything else it can reach. Martin’s PISSED. And with the help of his new Zombie Squad pals (Martin Starr, Jocelyn DeBoer, Ingrid Haas), he’s gonna deliver some payback to Colonel Herzog and his precious Nazi gold – by raising an undead army of his own.

If you haven’t seen the first Dead Snow film, you may as well go ahead and watch it now. There is a recap of the events of the first film before the sequel – kind of like several other horror franchises would do in the Eighties, but if that will do anything, it will make you want to watch Dead Snow. The events of Dead Snow 2 pick up precisely where the first film left off, so for the sake of continuity, you may as well be up-to-date. The main thing that sets Dead Snow apart from the gazillion other zombie movies floating around, is that these zombies have no interest in gnawing on your flesh. These zombies will straight-up fuck you up. This is because, these aren’t your standard automaton creatures. This is a battalion of pissed off Nazi zombies, on a mission to claim a shitload of gold that was stolen from them. You don’t get a lot of flesh-eating here. Most of the carnage(of which there is plenty) consists of these beastly undead creatures bashing people’s skulls in with a hammer, or tearing people limb-from-limb. If you want fast-paced violence, with more spectacular-looking practical gore effects than the last 10 horror movies you’ve seen combined, Dead Snow 2 is your ticket.

Is the film goofy? I mean, it’s about Nazi zombies. That factor alone lends the film an inescapable association with camp. There are some ridiculous moments in Dead Snow 2, but at no point does that detract from the all-out assault of ludicrous action set pieces. Dead Snow 2 is a funny movie, but it also pulls no punches when it comes to the chaos. One of the things that makes this movie such a fun ride, is that you never really get a breather. It starts strong, moves forward full-speed, and closes out teetering on the line between badass, and epic. For those of you that lack the ability to suspend disbelief, this isn’t a serious drama like The Walking Dead. You watch a film like Dead Snow 2 to have fun, even better if you can do so with friends. This is definitely a party movie. Like I said, Dead Snow 2 isn’t the best movie of 2014, but the amount of fun I had with it will guarantee it a spot somewhere on my list of the top 10 films of 2014. Well Go USA will be releasing Dead Snow 2 to Blu-ray tomorrow, the 9th of December. It is highly recommended that you purchase a copy of your own. It’s also extremely cheap for a new release, under 12 dollars with free shipping if you have Prime. Click the link to check it out.